Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real {Hurricane Irene}

~PRETTY~
In the calm before the storm, I took lots of "before" photos.  With the predictions for Irene being as bad as they were, I fully expected to lose some trees and see the flower beds wiped out. 

~HAPPY~
The boys' school cancelled the day before the hurricane so we could make preparations.  And prepare we did. We bought a brand new generator (cough!), lots of batteries, mini reading lights, bottled water, canned food, peanut butter and jelly sandwich makings, french press coffee maker, propane, extra gasoline,  and Play Doh.  All the deck furniture was moved into our living room and the TV blared weather updates all day long.  Once we were finally ready, the boys ran around in the dark backyard thinking they would be housebound for the next 36 hours.

~REAL~
Never had we seen houses and stores being boarded up before.  It all added to the uneasy yet strangely exciting anticipation of the storm yet to come.

In the distance,  Irene's first storm clouds appeared and we knew things would soon go downhill.

Winds picked up and our young trees showed their flexibility. 

When we lost power we really felt like we were surviving a hurricane.  At first, playing cards by candlelight was fun but the worst part was wondering how long we would be without electricity. 

The blessing came the next morning.  We awoke to our power being back on, the sun shining and no trees down at all.  Our maples are leaning but we feel so lucky to have experienced a hurricane with so little damage.  We learned a lot about being prepared and helpless at the same time.  Hopefully the rest of the season's storms will stay far out to sea!

Stop over to see more PHFR moments.